Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 21, 2025
The minds of men had sported forth, not toward any sound investigation of facts, but toward an eclectic resuscitation of Neoplatonism; which endured, not without a certain beauty and use as let Spenser's "Faerie Queen" bear witness till the latter half of the seventeenth century. After that time a rapid change began.
A general rush followed, that in a few minutes emptied the room of all but Miss Leavenworth, Mr. Gryce, and myself. "His rolling Eies did never rest in place, But walkte each where for feare of hid mischance, Holding a lattis still before his Pace, Through which he still did peep as forward he did pace." Faerie Queene.
Two pamphlets, both of them hasty improvisations, one a philosophic commentary on a certain stanza of the Faërie Queen, the other, his well-known Observations on the 'Religio Medici', are but mere bubbles of this seething activity, given over mostly to the preparation of his Two Treatises, "Of the Body," and "Of the Soul," published later in Paris, and to experiments on glass-making.
This cause, in the "Æneid," is the founding of Rome; in the "Jerusalem Liberated" it is the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre; in the "Faerie Queene" it is the triumph of the virtues over the vices; in the "Lusiads" it is the discovery and conquest of the Indies; in the "Divine Comedy" it is the salvation of the human soul.
And there was on the road that led to this common a space of ragged uneven ground with a pool and a twisted oak, and here he had often stayed in autumn and looked across the mist and the valley at the great theatre of the sunset, where a red cloud like a charging knight shone and conquered a purple dragon shape, and golden lances glittered in a field of faerie green.
But an era is an era, and in the reign of Elizabeth, by the grace of Luther, Queen of England, no man could help but catch the spirit of enthusiasm. To-night he had a book, a piece of work which, though inordinately versed, contained, he thought, some rather excellent political satire. "The Faerie Queene" by Edmund Spenser lay before him under the tremulous candle-light.
But strangely contrasted as are the elements of the poem, they are harmonized by the calmness and serenity which is the note of the "Faerie Queen." The world of the Renascence is around us, but it is ordered, refined, and calmed by the poet's touch.
Thomas Warton published in 1753 his Observations on the Faerie Queene. Beattie's Minstrel, Thomson's Castle of Indolence, and William Shenstone's Schoolmistress were all written in the Spenserian stanza. Shenstone gave a partly humorous effect to his poem by imitating Spenser's archaisms, and Thomson reproduced in many passages the copious harmony and luxuriant imagery of the Faerie Queene.
The method, at all events, has an interest of its own, a strength of its own, a grandeur of its own. If you do not like it, you must leave it alone. You are fond, you say, of romantic poetry; well, then, take down your Spenser and qualify yourself to join 'the small transfigured band' of those who are able to take their Bible-oaths they have read their 'Faerie Queen' all through.
It was dedicated to Sidney, who had become his friend and patron, and was received with acclamation, all who had ears for poetry perceiving that a new and great singer had arisen. The following year S. was appointed sec. to Lord Grey of Wilton, Deputy for Ireland, a strict Puritan, and accompanied him to Ireland. At the same time he appears to have begun the Faerie Queen.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking